


Scrier's Gaze

by A26



Series: The Void [2]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Action, Bionic Enhancements, Blood and Gore, Blood and Violence, Body Horror, Dark, Dark Magic, Dystopia, Far Future, Horror, Mutants, Science Fiction, Superpowers, Suspense, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-11 05:26:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8955991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A26/pseuds/A26
Summary: Years on from the escape of a worldwide oppression of witches, although still stigmatised, their lives have been repurposed. A malevolent brotherhood have formed, hoping to split tears between alternate realities and wreak havoc onto the world under misled beliefs that whatever lies on the other side will save them all. Levi's squad of elite witches is the investigatory team dispatched to one such location where the cult's activities have been reported. This is the story of what they uncover.





	

“Status report,” Erwin’s voice sounded over the radio through the blistering wind. Eren had already caught some wind burn across his cheeks from the glare of the sun radiating off the white miles of tundra. Eren observed with concern as their leader Levi peeled his gloves off to reveal black patches on some of his fingers and thumbs, the circulation long gone and the digits dying away while still fixed to his body. 

“Two miles from target, over.” Levi reported. 

They had been marching on foot for days. The winds were too unstable for aircraft and the terrain too desolate for vehicles, their legs buried in feet of snow for most of the journey. Armin’s abilities provided enough warmth, his pyrokinetics allowing the air around them to heat just enough to keep their body temperatures up.

Levi too had the ability to keep others warm, but Armin’s powers held less risk of tearing open the void. Most issues Levi liked to resolve with his foul mouth or his handgun. These days it was rare that anyone actually saw him using his powers while on missions, nor did anyone request it. He was the resistance’s best arms fighter, had the best shot out of any other human or witch. How much of that was pure skill and how much was enhanced by his unnatural abilities, no one knew.

No one dared to ask, either. 

Since the fall of the walls enclosing the planet’s witches, the resistance had re-purposed their lives. Most of them were too accustomed to fighting, so they wouldn't be able to lead a normal life within society, such as Levi. Purpose bred fighters, raised without normal social interaction. Society wasn't yet completely ready for those loose pieces to slot back in. Children and those with weaker powers, yes, these were easier to manage without causing too much risk, so they were allowed to lead ordinary lives with their families. Having these otherworldly powers was still stigmatised in most countries though. Trust would take a long time to build after centuries of conflict. 

The organisation which originally held Levi, Eren, Mikasa and Armin all those years ago had collapsed under the resistance’s assaults and slowly died off. What bitter remnants remained of the complex soon branched away and formed their own sort of ‘religion’. It exploded across the globe with enough lost witches needing direction as well as enough fearful humans prepared to assist their cause for far fetched promises of a calmer world. While the war was primarily over, the resistance now had the religion to deal with.

The new religion, or ‘cult’ as the once resistance dubbed it, held unstable beliefs regarding the great void. They began rituals to open tears in said expanse and the results were often catastrophic. They believed that the realms between the two realities was a wall between their own world and that of their great lords. Opening a bridge between the two was believed to summon forth their great, prophesied saviour. Eren had heard stories of instances where even demonic entities would appear as a result, crossing the threshold between realities due to the ritualistic summoning. 

That was exactly what was rumoured to be happening in this remote tundra of a once-Siberia. 

Eren glanced up over Levi’s head and spotted it. The white road which would lead their group to a small village. Tired and hungry, the squad of eight drew close, allowing the witches to fall to the back to appear less imposing. 

Connie was the first human in their squad. He specialised in compact, fast discharge laser handguns and was a formidable enemy on the battleground. At the age of twenty-five and a background in the organisation which crumbled into a cult, he knew witches well and defected early on to fight with the resistance as one of their key operatives. 

As a result of working with such volatile void energies, Connie had taken a few side effects from spells that had gone wrong. His right eye was blasted clean out, having been replaced with a bionic version amongst the mess of scar tissue. It greatly enhanced his aim as a result, being able to compute half of his movements and analyse them straight away, the bionics in his eye cleverly linked straight to his nervous system. 

Jean was the second and only other full human. He was also the vice-captain of the squad, second to Levi. At the same age as Connie with a similar background in arms training, he handled the more heavy-duty weaponry like rifles and grenades. He preferred not to use laser weapons where possible. Apparently he didn’t like the idea of the energy packs burning a hole in his balls. Not that it was possible with a perfectly functional weapon but leaks in batteries weren’t pretty, so Connie supposed he had a good point. 

Jean was still young, but he had seen his fair share of combat since teaming up with Levi. He’d taken a critical shot to the chest a few years back, and when Levi’s abilities were unable to assist his dire condition, he was fitted with a bionic heart in order to keep him alive. He relies on the witches not to cause any electronic surges, else he might suffer the consequences. The injury also left his chest marred with thick scar tissue, something he would take great measures in covering at all times. 

The next in line, Sasha, was a rank one, low threat witch with weapons skills in long range rifles, sniping specifically. Her ability was a mild case of both telekinesis and telepathy, meaning she had the ability to silently and effectively guide bullets around corners and obstacles. She had a very sharp aim, too, so didn’t need to rely on her abilities a lot of the time so long as she had a straight shot of her target. She also had the ability to see the world through the eyes of someone else. She could connect with their minds and project herself using their body. She couldn’t however influence any of the host’s movements. They wouldn’t even know she had been in their mind her influence was so weak. This made her the ideal candidate for stealth missions and infiltration from afar. She could tap into someone with authority to see the documentation the resistance needed. No physical copies required. 

Following Sasha amongst the squad was Armin and Eren as rank three pyrokinetic and diviner respectively. Armin could manipulate fire, whereas Eren could predict and pre-warn his squadmates. Due to Levi sharing in a few lower ability aspects of the same branch, he was able to hone Eren’s skills in combat. He could quickly detect where an enemy would be, when they would cross a threshold and how long to wait before taking certain actions. Because of this very ability Eren very rarely missed a target, and often helped in letting his team know an opportune moment to strike. 

Next up was Mikasa. A rank five telekinetic witch. She had the power to manipulate physical matter, so long as it wasn’t biological. Any non-living, inanimate object was fair game to her mental abilities. Much like Sasha’s abilities to guide bullets and move small objects, Mikasa had the refined power to hone in on that telekinetic ability and use it in the most precise ways. She could adjust the wiring in consoles and computers, pull the pins out of grenades on an enemy’s utility belt, or she could create blasts of energy. 

An ability of Mikasa’s which was seldom exploited, but she was able to execute perfectly, was the ability to bend matter itself and open gateways to different locations on the planet… or in the void. She dare not explore too far into the depths of the void, for fear of not returning as so many other telekine witches had done before. Not many other witches in the history of telekinetics had lived as long as she, and thus explored the extents of her abilities, so she was discovering new and undocumented abilities all of the time. 

Levi was a rank six when Eren met him. In the years they had worked together, he’d moved into a stronger rank seven, putting him as history’s most powerful witch on record. At least the most powerful witch that had both lived the longest and was still currently alive. Usually rank sixes would die quickly due to their vicinity with the void. Levi had learnt quickly enough to not use his abilities, even if they were incredibly effective. 

Levi’s ability was much like a stronger version of Mikasa’s, only he had the ability to manipulate living matter. He could influence his physical body to create whatever shape he needed to take on in order to get a task done. The most grotesque one Eren had ever had the displeasure of witnessing would have been when he sprouted a pair of fleshy, blood-covered wings, or that time he regenerated an entire leg within minutes after having it blown off. The options were limited to the man’s imagination, although his powers were often riddled with side effects due to how much void energy was required to execute them. 

As a result of these side effects, Levi had pale white skin, a white patch of hair streaking across his scalp, and was completely blind. He also didn’t have any toenails and was probably missing a few teeth. He had also completely lost every ounce of a sex drive, and often appeared cold and unemotional. Likely another side effect on his psyche. 

Then there was the final witch, Historia. Historia was a special sort of witch. She wasn’t particularly powerful, only a rank two, but it was her discipline which made her so valuable. She had initially started showing signs of understanding the ways of telepathy, however it was more astute than that. Historia had an intimate connection with the void. It was as if it were a second skin to her. She could feel disruptions and tears and had the delicate ability to stitch those gaps back together, opposed to perhaps Armin or Mikasa’s abilities to tear it apart. 

She was the most treasured of all witches in Levi’s squad because of this very skill. She led them carefully into dangerous places where cultists were active in ripping open gateways between the two dimensions, and the brute force of the other seven would clear her path to the breaks and spillages so that she could mend them and cast back whatever foul creatures had been summoned forth. 

Eren was on high alert as they entered the village, eyes scanning over each and every building, looking for something he recognised. Sometimes he didn’t need to actively connect with the void in order for it to communicate with him. A lot of the times he had dreams of foresight which he couldn’t control, and other times other witches nearby or across the globe would detect something for him and warn him. 

“Go that way,” Eren suggested, pointing to the left. Jean just grunted and nodded and slung his rifle over his shoulder. Levi remained close to Eren, holding onto his arm as if he required guiding. The whole squad knew he could sense exactly what was around him at all times, but it made regular humans or village folk at ease more if the most imposing feeling witch with them appeared more vulnerable than he actually was. 

“There’s an inn down there,” Eren said over their comms receiver. Jean and Connie just nodded and led the group through the small village. The population couldn’t have been more than a couple hundred, and the streets looked deserted for now, everyone having taken shelter from the snow storm. 

Deciding on who would arrange them all someplace to rest was relatively simple.. Armin’s family was originally from these regions, and Historia was able to understand people regardless of whatever language they spoke, so the pair of them headed into the inn to arrange lodgings. Once they re-emerged with a quick nod towards the team, the rest of them headed through the creaky door and through the quaint grey brick-built country house. It was styled much like the village pub, with a few rooms upstairs for any guests. 

Everyone got settled in, left the bulk of their heaviest clothing upstairs in their rooms and all returned downstairs to gather around a large wooden table in the corner, out of any other patron’s way. There was two other people in the inn besides the band of witches, so they didn’t have to worry too much about people being afraid of them. Sure, they cast some suspicious side glances but nothing they couldn’t easily ignore. 

Armin was up by the bar speaking with the owner to try and get as much information as possible, and Historia was supervising by advising Armin telepathically whether or not the man was lying or not so he could alter his questions to gain his trust. 

“We can wait until the weather dies down a little and figure out where we’re going next in the meantime,” Connie said, tucking into one of his food ration bars. Mikasa was leaning against Eren and getting a bit of rest. They had all been hiking for a solid day now, so they were all exhausted. There was nothing more dangerous than an exhausted witch. Their powers began to roam whenever they weren’t in full control of their bodies and minds. As a result, Levi was the first to retire for sleep and Eren soon followed. 

Before long, the entire squad had finished up whatever business they needed to complete, including gaining the trust of the bar owner and extracting some valuable information from him, but Levi instructed everyone to debrief in the morning. 

Which was exactly what they ended up doing, sat around the same large table big enough to seat all eight of them, all of them well slept and clean. Eren had a dream all about miners during the night, but wasn’t given any specific details other than the various complex pathways and tunnels that made up an extensive underground network. 

“He told us the workers have been going missing, and that it all matches up with the time that the cultists started growing in activity in this region. He thinks there’s something going on in the mines, because people go down and have just stopped coming out now,” Historia said with a sombre tone. Armin simply frowned and nodded with the delivered information. 

“So they have taken over the mines?” Jean asked. 

“We don’t know,” Armin began. “There have been shady people milling around the entrance to the mines, but since no workers have been going in or out in the last two weeks, no one knows what’s going on. The workers who do go and check it out, just haven’t come back.” 

“Right.” 

“Yeah, so we gotta check those mines out then,” Connie said expectantly, looking at Levi and Jean. 

“Do we know where they are?” Jean asked.

“North of town, five kilometres,” Historia supplied. 

“Finish eating and we’ll head out,” Levi ordered before getting up and heading back upstairs. The team did exactly that and returned to their rooms to arm themselves. Historia had reported a growing weakness in the fabric between the two realities concentrated in this area, so there was a tear imminent. If it had already happened, or happened while they were inside the mines, there was a chance that demonic beings might spew out, killing them all. That was their purpose. Close the rift or kill those trying to open one. 

It was also easier said than done. 

The storm had cleared, leaving miles of fresh sheets of snow on everything. Armin attempted to ask a couple of the locals for transport, but the request went declined, any townsfolk too fearful to go near the mines with the sense that something otherworldly might be happening there. The trek to the mines didn’t take long, and at first glance it was apparent that the mines were still operational. The area around the entrance to the mine was surrounded by fresh tyre-churned snow and footsteps leading both in and out of the mines.

Levi cast his gaze across the entrance of the mines, staring for a few moments. “I can’t feel any other witches. These prints aren’t fresh either.” 

Sasha looked down at the seemingly freshly trodden snow, boot prints perfectly in tact as if they’d been trodden just moments before. 

“Huh? They look really fresh though!” she exclaimed, not understanding how her training in tracking could be so wrong versus a blind man. She was one of the younger members of the squad at eighteen, so had a long way to go in terms of understanding the more complex varieties of witches that existed. Under closer inspection of the air around them, Levi pointed to the snow. 

“It’s…” Jean started, but his mouth hung open as he stared at it, brows furrowed in confusion. The snow was at a stand still at the mouth of the mine entrance, suspended in air, unmoving, as if time had just ceased to exist. 

“It’s not snowing any more, but it was when whoever placed this arrived,” Levi said, frown deeply etched into his face. He looked more frustrated than disturbed, as if the cultists were a mere pest instead of a threat. The team were clearly perplexed and unsettled by the discovery of a new power, unsure of exactly what type of witch would be able to create this. Especially since their rank seven was unable to detect their whereabouts. 

“Creepy,” Armin said, touching some of the snow and watching it melt on his warm fingertips, even through the thick rubber lining of his gloves. That was one of Armin’s side effects from using his abilities- his body temperature ran unnaturally high, so he was able to walk around in sub-zero temperatures without much more on than a t-shirt. His tempered skin also enabled him to touch objects at extraordinarily high temperatures. Needless to say he was the first person to call whenever anyone couldn’t find a pair of oven gloves. 

Even to the humans in the group the air felt thick and strange. It was clear someone fairly powerful had been manipulating void energy in this vicinity. 

“The snow stopped at approximately zero three hundred hours, Sir,” Sasha said, glancing down at her wrist-bound tablet. Levi looked up, although at what, no one knew. He crouched over and placed a blackened hand on the frozen ground, turning his head to look toward the entrance down into the mines which was littered with abandoned tools, helmets and thick yellow leather work boots. 

“That means they were here last night, roughly one or two-am,” Jean said, half to himself. “Spread out, check the perimeter,” he ordered, allowing Levi to continue doing whatever it was he was up to. There was no sense in ordering the biomancer to do anything- he didn’t play well with others at the best of times. 

Each of the witches spread out and around and within about ten minutes the area had been reported clear of all activity, no one in sight. 

“Nothing over here either, Sir,” Connie reported over his comms caster. 

“Levi?” Jean asked of the strangely focused witch who was staring at the entrance of the mine the entire time they were scouting the perimeters. “Care to share?” Jean knew when the gears were turning in Levi’s mind. Everyone could tell by now, having worked alongside him for years (or months that felt like years). Whenever he picked something up that none of the other witches could, he turned deathly silent and stared into space, clearly seeing something everyone else couldn’t. If they knew what it was went on behind those glossy white eyes, they would probably have nightmares for the rest of their (limited) lifespans. It was for the best that Levi didn’t share the details. It was safer that way. 

“Historia was right,” was all Levi said, catching the short blonde woman’s attention as she approached from her round. 

“Of course I was,” she said with a smile. Jean just groaned, knowing that their confirmation meant only for pain and frustration for himself. There were cultists working here, and they would eventually have to engage with them. Probably to the death. Jean wasn’t so sure all of their team members would be going home alive or in one piece, but they were all skilled enough to at least put his mind at ease. 

“Shall we?” Connie said, hands resting on the laser pistols strapped to his thighs, batteries glowing a gentle green. The group agreed and silently started moving in toward the mine entrance. The site was fairly large, with multiple mine entrances at the foot of a snowy mountain range. The area surrounding was devoid of trees, probably due to the fallout from past nuclear strikes that still hadn’t cleared from the soil hundreds of years later. 

“There’s five entrances, but two are closed off,” Eren said, remembering his dream from the night before. “The biggest one is that one over there-” he pointed to a large hole in the cliff face, hollow and dark and surrounded by snowed-over diggers and trucks, some looking more functional than others. The whole place felt eerie and silent aside from the gentle whisper of the wind, an entire lack of animal life painfully obvious. Not even the birds flew near this place, repelled by the stench of death. 

“Connie can you map out any of the tunnels?” Jean asked as they started in through the large cavernous hole cut into the earth. Connie got to work on his various devices. 

“Working on it.” 

The team of eight must have walked for miles, easily spending hours underground following the wide cut tunnels of the mines. There were hover-carts and mining equipment left lying around everywhere, signs of some sort of evacuation present. The radioactive fluids used for lighting gently glowed a gentle green throughout all of the tunnels, and the group had little success in finding any other fresh footprints or signs of life other than the workers that began to refuse working here a couple of weeks before. 

“This is useless, we don’t even know where we’re going,” Connie whined, standing still to rest for a moment after hours of walking the monotonous hallways of rock and dirt. 

“Historia?” Levi asked, turning to look in her direction. 

“I can still feel the disruption. We need to find a way lower. It’s deeper in the earth,” she said with a shrug, not sure of how to navigate the tunnels. 

“Any luck with that map?” Jean asked of Connie who shrugged and shook his head. 

“It all looks the same. Problem is we gotta walk near the tunnels to map ‘em out. We could be down here for days trying to figure out how much space is down here.” 

“We should have checked for a foreman’s office before coming down here,” Armin said. 

“Nice of you to suggest it at the time,” Jean griped.

“Looks like we’ll have to improvise,” Mikasa said with a frown, interjecting before Jean could ignite an argument. The team knew what she meant though. Someone would have to use their abilities to tap into the void energy nearby and find them all a safe route in which to follow towards the energetic disruption. 

“Eren,” Levi said. The man turned to look at Levi and then to the rest of the group, as if seeking permission. They all nodded and so he took a moment to gather his thoughts, closed his eyes, and focused. 

He could feel the hairs on his neck standing on end as he connected with the separate dimension, seeking out what answers he required. It wasn’t so much of a conscious effort to ask the void for the future, but more of a feeling. He had to sense it rather than seek it out. As the ancient teaching went: if the student was to look for it, it will be hidden in the last place they look, but if you allow it to come to you, you shall receive. 

As Eren focused, the group’s presence fading into the back of his mind, the team members watched him as the temperature around him plummeted and a thin layer of frost started to coat everything starting from Eren’s feet. 

A few groans of complaint had everyone instantly on alert as they watched, careful for any other phenomenon possible to occur. It wasn’t unusual that something like this happened with a witch’s powers, however the more powerful the witch, the more terrible the side-effect. It was entirely possible that a witch could use a power and not weild any results, but cause mass destruction in merely trying. 

Eren tapped into the depths of his mind’s eye, allowing himself to see as far down as the energy channeling through him will allow. He cannot feel the cold enveloping his physical body, since his mind is so far stretched as he maps out the entirety of the complex system of man-made tunnels and natural caves deep within the hive-like structure. He gets a sense of everything that has happened in these mines before- every tiny little detail. He knows when it was first dug, how many injuries the workers suffered, from minor cuts to deaths, and he knows how long they had planned to work here. He even knew how much more ore there was here to mine, and how much the human miners would miss in the future. 

Every tiny detail, including an extensive map of the tunnels, was granted to his mind’s eye. All he had to do now was focus on returning to where he stood and making the big picture make sense from his team’s current location. 

He had the information he needed and felt a warm hand on his shoulder, bringing his focus back to the physical where he slowly opened his eyes. His hair was a mess, static almost and frozen into place, and a soft coating of ice covered him from head to toe. 

Levi and Historia were at his side as he returned to consciousness and Levi took his hand in order to bring him back completely. Any physical touch would do, but the more the better. 

“Get it, Eren?” Historia asked gently, looking up at him. Eren just nodded slowly, still a little spaced out and groggy.

“Yeah, thanks,” Eren said quietly as Armin approached, dusting off the ice carefully with his bare hand. Fortunately he didn’t need to tap into the energies of the void in order to heat the area around him. It was a natural side-effect that would follow him around until he died or another side effect countered it. 

With Eren re-focused and the team back on their way, the diviner led the way using the information he’d downloaded from the void, guiding them down a few more corridors until the walls started to get a little narrower, the ceiling lower, and the air colder. The lights were fewer and far between, and the atmosphere grew heavier. They were getting closer. 

The team slowed to a stop when met with a thick metal door blocking their path at the end of a narrow corridor lined with steel and wooden sleepers. One minor push with Sasha’s mind from a safe distance confirmed the door was locked or jammed, so Jean headed a little closer to inspect it. 

“Mikasa or Sasha, think you could handle this?” 

“Let Sasha try,” Levi ordered, prioritising the lower rank. 

“Or I can just try and force it open?” Jean said. 

“We don’t know what’s on the other side. We need to remain quiet.” 

“I can force it quietly.” 

“Go on, then,” Levi grumbled. 

While Jean got to work on the metal door, Historia stepped closer and looked at it, having been the only person to take a close enough look. 

“Look,” she pointed to the door, which was etched with scratch marks forming strange occult shapes and symbols. She was the only one in the group with a detailed enough knowledge of the cultists to understand them, so naturally she was the only one to think anything of them. 

“What are they?” Armin asked. 

“They’re warnings,” Historia said grimly. “Turn back now, do not enter, the usual.” 

“Oh, great,” Connie said with a grimace, looking more and more uneasy the deeper they travelled towards the epicenter of the disturbance. 

Jean managed to get the door to open with a quiet click, although the creaking of the hinges made up for any subtlety they were originally aiming for. The loud metal creak reverberated through the corridor behind them, echoing off sheet metal and into the darkness behind the now open door. A horrible sense of dread flooded from the threshold and midnight blackness was the only thing to greet them.

Past the metal door was nothing but pitch black. Nothing but pitch black and the pungent stench of death. Jean flashed a torch through the darkness and the light reflected off of slick red and dark, grisly gore. Whatever workers were once here, were in fact still here… in pieces. 

Jean pulled his collar up over his nose to try and gain some reprieve from the strong smell, but it didn’t do much. Armin was first to hunch over and wretch along the side of the corridor, the smell bordering on putrid as it was clear the remains had to have been decomposing for quite some time. 

Something didn’t make sense to Levi, so he lifted the ends of his long trench coat and stepped across the threshold into the red slicked room. It was clear he knew what was before him, despite being blind, but it didn’t seem to bother him. Perhaps the void had tampered with his sense of smell, too. 

“It’s warm in here.” 

“What?” Jean said, peering back through, trying his best to shine some light on the area and take in the surroundings. This wasn’t a singular room by any means. There were corridors leading to and from the space where Levi was stood amongst the splattered remains of miners. 

The room however was carved a little differently to the uniform methods adopted by the miners. Their machinery tended to cut away segments in large cubic blocks, leaving straight walls and clear cut pathways. These walls, under closer inspection, appeared to have been dug out. With claws. 

The corridors were perfectly circular, suggesting either a large creature or a rounded device, the former most likely, judging by the scraps of pale, scaled skin clinging to the wall in strange patches. 

“What the hell?” 

“Void worms, probably,” Levi said, his face still perfectly etched into a frown. Eren knew of the creatures he was speaking of, but never imagined he’d ever see signs of them on earth instead of the void realm. 

“What are those?” Jean asked. 

“You don’t wanna know,” Mikasa and Historia echoed at the same time, only instilling more dread into their human companion. There was no way of reassuring anyone in a situation like this. These creatures were not from this world, and if they were being used to bore holes deep in the ground, there was no saying just how far this network of tunnels might run. The spread of the cultists could be expanding on a daily basis and the world would be none the wiser until it was too late. 

“This is the right direction,” Eren said. The group slowly forced themselves to pass the threshold into the squelchy red carpet of entrails and as the last of them slipped through, the door slammed shut behind them without so much as a gust of wind to help it along. The void was at work here, untethered and unbound. This wasn’t a place mortals were invited to stay for long. 

“There is definitely a tear in the void. They have hidden it well though, I can only now feel the extent of it,” Historia said softly, trying her best to not breathe too much because of the smell. Levi was right though, it was unusually warm in this tunnel. 

The dug corridor expanded out into a small naturally occurring cavern, the ceiling sloping upward and the walls made of bedrock, the air cooler and clearer the further away from the carnage they walked. If anyone had bothered to check the rear of the metal door, they would have found scratches and clear signs of attempted escape. Nothing that entered this room was destined to leave alive. 

The cavern dipped down into the earth and split into ten different tunnels, some dug out with sonic drills and others by natural means. Much like the rest of the mines there were steel beams propped up to support the corridors, most of which oozed a clear liquid from uneven drilling holes and crevices, pooling onto the ground in putrid smelling puddles. 

Down toward the right was the first place the group tried. The tunnels led down into a cave, devoid of anything other than the water seeping through the rocks and giving the area a moist scent along with the clear fluids oozing from the rock. Connie was mapping the entire chasm as they explored each route to ensure they couldn’t get lost. They were miles underground after all. 

“This whole area isn't actually that big,” he said as he analysed the mapping provided by his tablet. A few of the team grunted but otherwise they carried on scouting the area for cultist activity. There was disrupted dirt and footprints everywhere, but it was hard to say how fresh they were with the significant lack of lighting, available only from their gun-mounted torches. 

The group halted when the noise of retching halted their progress. The smell was starting to get to Armin, who was bent over with a hand on the wall as the remnants of his breakfast exited in a hurry. Mikasa was there to lay a hand on his shoulder and Historia pulled a small device out from her pack, guiding it toward the translucent goo seeping from the walls. It took only moments for a read to come through. 

“We’d better keep moving, this stuff is pretty toxic.” 

This one led them down into a two-metre wide corridor with another heavy metal door at the end. There were laser battery lights strung up beside the blood stained door and ground and more of those symbols from before. Only these ones were painted in blood on the wall, and meant something completely different. 

“Historia?” Connie asked, looking up at the macabre display. 

“God’s sanctum,” she said quietly with a grim undertone.

“This must be the place then,” Jean suggested as he moved to try and open the next heavy metal door as before. After about ten minutes of attempts, he concluded that he couldn’t get it open. 

“Anyone mind helping? This thing is jammed or something.” 

“Sasha.” Levi ordered. She lowered her rifle and approached the door, staring at it as if trying to will it to move with her mind. She must have found the lock mechanisms, because after eight loud clunks, the door swung inward gently. A cool breeze wafted through the open door and finally the scent of the mines was starting to dissipate. 

Through the doorway was a two-metre long corridor, extending down as far as their eyes could see. Generator powered lanterns upon metal support pillars cast everything in the hall a sickly green colour. There was a door a little ways up on the left hand side and further down the corridor branched out into openings on both sides all the way down. 

All along the walls were grisly remnants of what looked to have once been the security guards placed around the mines. There were glistening organs, chunks of flesh and torn remnants of uniforms, confirming the team’s suspicions. The workers had been down here, and this massacre was likely the cause of their refusal to return into the mines. 

“Just when I thought we were gonna get away from the smell of bodies,” Armin groaned, tightening his breather around his nose and mouth. 

“We must be close by now, the feeling is much stronger down here,” Historia said. 

“Should we split up to search the corridors?” Eren asked.

“No, stay together. There could be a ritual in any of these rooms,” Historia warned. “And if that happens we’re going to need all the firepower we have.” 

“You heard the lady,” Connie said quietly, starting their approach on toward the first door on the left. It was another heavy metal door, but with a strong push this one actually opened. Inside was a decent sized room with old broken cupboards and cabinets, a lot of doors missing and left decorated with nothing but dust and cobwebs. 

There were tables turned and broken and rubble strewn across everything. Eren ducked into the room with his rifle, inspecting for anything hostile, but found nothing. Connie remained by the door to look out while the rest of the squad filed in to inspect the contents. Everything was empty, with no recent signs of disturbance. 

“Clear.” 

“Roger that,” Connie said, keeping his focus on the corridor should anything appear. They continued down the hall until they were met with the next opening. 

Historia suddenly bristled and suppressed a squeak of shock as a light blue millipede scattered underfoot and crunched loudly under her combat boot. The rest of the squad were on such high alert they were entirely prepared to kill whatever struck her. With four gun barrels pointed in her direction, that wasn't necessary though. 

“It's fine- I'm fine. Sorry,” she said in a quiet hurry, a little embarrassed.

The group started heading right first, down a long narrow corridor much similar to the last one, only this one was a little darker. Every other lamp was broken and the closer they drew to the rooms situated at the rear of the hall, the closer they moved toward signs of struggle. Pieces of torn clothing and small splatters of blood suggested a fight of some sort occurred here. 

The first door they tried on the left hand side was completely wedged shut. None of the witches could sense anything living behind the door, so they left it sealed. Now, for the other one. 

“Wait here,” Jean said as he attempted the door handle on the opposite door. It creaked open and inside the room was pitch black. Something made a rustling noise as if the streak of light from his torch had disrupted a deep slumber. He immediately backed away from the door and gestured to the others that there was something inside. 

Sasha shone her light down onto the ground and a huge streak of red was smeared from the mess in the hallway up to the threshold of the freshly opened door, a grim look upon her face as she clearly anticipated something awful within. Jean gestured for everyone to raise their weapons and stand by, and he slowly pushed the door completely open whilst everyone waited in the corridor, the tension tangible in the air. 

Those positioned closest to the door could hear a squelching noise coming from the darkness of the room, as if something was eating and not being tidy about it in the slightest. It was a grotesque, wet noise, which had Connie, Historia, Sasha and Armin’s knees trembling with fear as the noise lulled into silence. 

Mikasa, Eren and Jean looked steeled and ready to fight, clearly terrified but masking it much better than their companions. Levi merely appeared indifferent, drawing one of his energy swords and activating the molecularly thin blade. 

“Back up,” was all Jean had time to say before whatever was in the darkness of the chamber was clearly on it’s way toward the light shining through the door, it’s meal abandoned in favour of the scent of a fresh catch. Whatever the thing was, it was huge, and the way it shuffled across the ground made the dirt beneath the group’s feet tremble with the weight. Everyone backed away from the door and aimed their weapons. 

The creature that emerged was something truly not of this world. It was pink and fleshy all over, with a gaping vicious maw consuming most of it’s grotesquely large head which was beaded with thousands of tiny black eyes. The beast had a tuft of black fur on the back of its bulging head and a heavy, broken body dragged by a pair of muscular arms, the skin of which was pierced by hundreds of bloodied bone spikes and uneven knobbles. 

It was roughly a metre and a half in height, and attached to the tail end of its mangled body was the remnants of what looked like a pair of legs, one foot still wearing a yellow leather work boot which closely resembled that of those seen above ground with the mining equipment.

Whatever this was, it _used to be_ human… and there was absolutely no saving it. 

The first half of the group, initially terrified by the sound of the beast were now frozen in place with fear, unable to move or comprehend what it was they were seeing. The void energy had clearly mutated this poor soul, it’s true demonic nature taking physical form. The witches in the area could smell the pungent, bitter smell that radiated from the beast, coming off like energetic waves only they could feel, assaulting their every senses and disorientating them. Even Levi seemed taken back by the stench. 

Connie and Jean however, still wearing their breathers and mostly unaffected by the energetic waves, held enough clarity to call their squad back to arms - to open fire. 

Eren, Mikasa and Sasha snapped from their disorientation fairly quickly, but it took the rattle of gunfire to bring the others around to their senses. Connie shot a fire off into the beast’s gaping mouth and it staggered only a small amount in it’s slow lumber of an approach. Their ballistic weapons were doing nothing to damage the beast, it’s skin absorbing most metal and laser shots.

Jean watched with horror as one of his bullets struck the beast in the arm and the limb gladly sucked it in and healed straight over, not so much as spitting the bullet out. 

The beast slowed to a halt since it was under such heavy fire and hunched in on itself, growing in size and it’s pink fleshy skin darkened in colour. Mikasa’s eyes scanned over the creature’s movements and quicker than a blink of an eye, the beast’s skin exploded, sending shards of sharp bone out in every direction. Mikasa’s reactions were good enough for her to pull up an energetic force-field around most of the team, however Connie was flung to the wall from the impact of the shards hitting his flak vest. He landed motionlessly and lay there, unresponsive to the group’s continued fight. 

“Hold your fire!” Levi called out as he squinted in the beast’s direction, clearly trying to suss it out. Jean managed to pull Connie away from it as it resumed its slow approach, Mikasa maintaining the barrier for now as it gurgled and growled. Everyone stopped firing their weapons and Eren had to tap at Armin’s shoulder to get him to focus. He didn’t have a very strong stomach and looked paler than a ghost. 

“Shooting at it is no use,” Levi said. 

“So what do we do?” Armin asked quickly, bordering on hysterics. 

“Light the fucker up!” Jean recommended from the rear of the group, clearly worried about Connie and resentful of the creature that put his comrade in such a state. 

Armin looked to Levi for guidance. 

“You heard the man,” Levi said, gesturing to the beast for Armin to deal with. Armin was afraid, yes, but his squad needed him, so he steeled his resolve and turned to face the ugly monstrosity. It had pieces of flesh stuck between razor sharp rows upon rows of teeth, with blood on every other part of it. 

Mikasa let down the guard so the flames wouldn’t lick back onto themselves, Armin taking a moment to focus before slipping his gloves off and unleashing a sudden intense cone of fire out in front of him, lighting the entire creature up and listening to it wail in agony. The noise would surely haunt their dreams for months to come, since it sounded like a thousand souls all being incinerated at once in a deadly inferno. 

He maintained the burst of fire for a good few seconds before allowing it to quell, checking to see if the creature had stopped moving. It definitely took damage from the attack, but it was evident that the creature had immense regenerative abilities that would prove troublesome. It snapped and growled at Armin and tried swinging one of its large charred hands out towards him in a heavy swoop. Armin was quick enough to step away from the attack, managing to remain unharmed physically. 

Armin tried once more with the same attack, dousing the entire creature in flames hot enough to melt flesh from bones, yet still it remained intact, and Armin felt his effort depleted as he retreated to relieve Jean of Connie’s care. 

“Fuck, it just keeps healing!” Eren yelled, knowing if his weapons didn’t work, he was more or less useless. Historia was in the same situation, as was Sasha. They all felt powerless since they didn’t have offensive void abilities. This fight would be down to Armin, Mikasa and Levi. 

Mikasa didn’t wait for her invitation to attack, she just went for it. She didn’t even have to move from her spot and her hair prickled up as if charged with static electricity whilst she summoned the force required to execute her attack. The whites of her eyes blacked over and within a split second of the last of the whites disappearing, a piercing flash erupted from in front of her and struck the beast straight through the head and torso, splitting it clean in two. The two halves of the body slumped and fizzled, it’s body clearly unable to regenerate from such a force. 

Cautious of the remains, the team waited nervously to see if it would get up again, but when it showed no such intentions, they all sagged with relief.

The corpse started to rapidly decompose and collapse from the inside as the void-infused flesh and bone started to lose it’s power source, leaving nothing but a smouldering heap of gore. The only thing holding the beast together had been the energy from the void. As whatever had possessed the once-miner was now dead, it’s mutilated vessel was losing all structure. 

Mikasa staggered a little, checking herself over for defects and then checking over the group for any either. 

“Is everyone okay?” She asked. 

“Connie’s hurt,” Armin said. Connie had taken a few of the bone shards to the unarmoured parts of his legs and neck, small puncture wounds cauterised quickly by Armin’s still-hot hands after his attempts at stopping the mutant. “He’s alive, but I don’t know how useful he’ll be.” 

Levi approached and crouched down beside the pair, resting a hand on Connie’s forehead to presumably take a reading. He knew the most about human biology in all of it’s forms, so he was often the first port of call for first aid. 

“He’s fine, give him a slap and a bit to drink and rest up for ten minutes. Jean and Mikasa, scout out the opposite hallway but if anything is down there, don’t engage.”

“Yes Sir,” they both mirrored. 

As the two carefully moved off and away into the opposite corridor, the rest of the group waited for Connie to come back around. It didn’t take very long at all for Jean and Mikasa to return with sour looks on their faces. 

“How many?” Levi asked. 

“Six. They’re bigger, too,” 

“Shit.” 

“Yeah.” 

“I could probably handle them, but can we avoid them?” 

“It seemed like another dead end, but there’s no way to be sure.” 

“We leave it then,” Levi concluded. “If we end up with no other route to take, I’ll handle it. Go lay snares to alert us if they move.” 

“Yes Sir.” 

Once all of their team members were back on their feet and armed, they silently slipped around the corner avoiding the nest of mutants, making their way towards the next open corridor. Still shaken by the first encounter, a lot of the group were fearful of what was to come. It was true this wasn’t the most ideal group to bring down here, hardened soldiers may have been more useful. 

Even with their fears looming above them, they marched on, determined to get out as soon as possible. 

They took the next left and it took them down into a long cavernous maze of tunnels. It was not very deep, and all routes ended up meeting up at the same end, rendering this particular direction a waste of thirty minutes. At least it was a welcomed reprieve from combat, even if only for a short while. The tunnels oozed the same blue-white, near translucent fluid from before, where the tunnels had been seemingly burrowed. It left a bad taste in the group’s mouths and only fuelled their dread further. 

They did a quick check on the group of mutants in the previous corridor but the entrance showed no signs of movement, so they pressed back on up the main hallway. 

At the end of the current corridor there were two more doors, a matching theme for the underground complex. 

“Where would they be most likely to perform a ritual?” Eren quietly asked of Historia. 

“Likely somewhere dark and deep. It would be well hidden, too, so keep an eye out for narrow or hidden passages. They could even set up a psychic door only the witches can see.” 

Jean approached the next door and the group held back while he tried the handle, collectively trying to push away the thoughts of what might be on the other side. When the handle didn’t budge he gave it a good shove with his shoulder, forcing it open. His face paled and he stared, in shock, at the contents. His breath caught in his throat as he tried not to retch at the sight. He wanted to look away, _needed_ to tear his eyes away, but could not. 

Curious and concerned, Mikasa approached to pull Jean’s attention away from the room but was met with the same reaction, only a less severe. She almost retched, covering her mouth with her hand as she immediately pulled Jean away from the sight and closed the door. 

“What’s inside?” Sasha asked nervously. 

“You don’t want to know- come on Jean, snap out of it,” Mikasa said, giving Jean some gentle reassurance in the form of a pat to the shoulder. Unfortunately she couldn’t deny that what they had seen was real, but at least she could try her best to pull his memory away from it. Denial was Mikasa’s best form of medicine in these sorts of situations. She could allow herself the time and space to deal with it properly later, when they weren’t in possibly mortal danger. 

“We’ve got another door here Jean, focus.” 

He took a few moments to full compose himself, but otherwise just got back to working with a dark shadow over his face, the image clearly still haunting him. He opened the door with little trouble and it creaked open much like the others did, revealing a large, wide room with a number of tanks lining the walls. They could easily hold a hundred gallons, but one had broken, spewing it’s gently glowing light blue fluid all over the floor and wall at the back of the room. 

The group of soldiers braced their weapons against their shoulders or kept them drawn and aimed, wary of any other unexpected guests. 

“There were cultists in there too,” Jean whispered to Mikasa. She just frowned and nodded, gesturing for him to pay attention to their surroundings. 

“Eyes forward,” Levi said quietly. 

“What is this stuff?” Sasha asked, stepping over a small puddle of the strange ooze. 

“The readings are off the charts,” Historia announced, directing one of her tablets toward the tanks. “Wherever they’re getting this from, it isn’t completely earthen.” 

“It must be what mutated that miner,” Armin speculated with a shrug, looking uneasy about the entire room. 

“No one touch it then,” Jean said. 

“Yeah,” Connie said, glaring at the fluid as if it had personally offended him. 

A light rustle behind one of the tanks drew everyone’s attention and Mikasa and Levi drew closer to investigate, guns raised and ready. They stepped closer, very slowly, minding exactly where their feet trod, careful not to make any noise and maintain the element of surprise against their foe. 

One step closer and the source of rustling emerged- a rat. 

Sighing softly before looking around to check the rest of the room, Levi and Mikasa checked over the room only to find nothing else of interest. Only the strange vats of liquid mounted to the walls. They returned to the door and back down the hall, heading further down the sickly green lit hallways. 

It was only when they came to three more dead ends did they take a moment to pause and figure out where to go next. 

“I dread to say it but I think that path with the mutants is our best bet,” Jean said, defeated. 

“Can’t one of you check it out first? Eren maybe?” Armin suggested logically. “We don’t want to go in there if that isn’t actually the way. You saw what one of those was capable of, the last thing we need is a group.” 

Eren looked to Jean and Levi, as if asking permission to use his abilities. He was always concerned of overstepping boundaries or disobeying orders. Levi always gave him the same response whenever he looked at him in that questioning way- to make his own choices. Levi had even told him he out of all of them should know which choices he would and wouldn’t regret. 

“I’ll do another read,” Eren said. No one contested, taking a moment to take care of their weapons or have something to drink. The delicate invisible membrane between the void and reality made the read extremely easy- the energy was all around Eren in this mine. It was just there. So, with a successful map of where to go, Eren grinned. 

“We don’t have to go near those mutants,” he announced with a small smile. 

“Lead the way,” Mikasa said. 

Eren led them back up to the room with the large vats of blue-white fluid and the others looked a little confused at first until he ducked behind one of the vats, careful not to get any of the fluid near him. When he didn’t re-emerge, and his voice echoed for them all to hear, they all followed, one by one into a narrow tunnel burrowed off from the main room, the entrance of which was disguised as a brick wall to match the room. 

“Clever,” Armin said as he passed the threshold. Something bothersome niggled at the back of his mind though as they all walked past the magical disguise. 

The hallway was no more than a metre wide and grew incredibly narrow at times, to the point of some of the team having to side-step to pass. The passages curved up and down and in some places they were all on their hands and knees, crawling through tight spaces until they finally hit another mining corridor lower down in the system. The hole they crawled out of was affixed to the wall of the two-metre wide hallway, lit similarly to the rest of the mines with generators or naturally glowing fluids pumped through pipes. 

“Where are we?” Connie asked as the last person out into the hallway. Everyone shrugged and checked in both directions. Levi was staring in one direction, so the team silently chose that way. They trusted him enough to pick up his little signs. Some of them were literally mind readers but no one knew what was going on in that man’s mind. It was early established he had a strong resistance to void energy manipulating his mind. 

They must have walked down the endless system of tunnels for another hour or so until they started to sense they were closing in on something big. Historia started to look a bit pale, and Mikasa steadied her before her legs went from under her. 

“Hey, hey guys wait up,” she said as the shorter blonde slumped against her. Something was affecting her. Something they couldn’t see or sense. It was likely to do with her unique connection with the void. 

“What’s the hold up?” Jean asked, rounding back to check on the two women. 

“I’m fine, we’re just really close,” Historia said, albeit a little breathlessly. “Be careful,” she forewarned before accepting a drink from Sasha in the hopes it would help clear her mind. 

“Mikasa, do that thing you do,” Levi said, catching her off guard a little since his voice only appeared to have been for her ears. She understood him, though, and tapping into the energies around her to create an uplifting aura around herself. It was a very subtle ability that a lot of witches could do regardless of their specific branch of abilities. 

No one understood where it came from, or that it was even one of their own making them feel strangely at peace, easing their nerves and helping them feel more relaxed and safe. Levi was quick to remind them to stay focused, but Mikasa’s influence definitely helped to sway the morale in the group. Especially if they were about to face something ten times worse than what was upstairs. The void contained horrific things. Demons, even. People had died from merely laying eyes on them. Levi hoped to not have to encounter one, but the odds were against them if this cult were working on tearing open a hole between the two dimensions. 

Re-focused and calm, they pressed onward and followed another long stream of small hallways and half dug corridors, empty rooms and an increasing amount of body parts, blood smears and mutilated corpses. Armin managed to hold his stomach despite the mess, feeling a lot more calm in their gory presence. 

Guns up and ready, they slinked around a corner and into another room, scanning for mutants or cultists or anything moving and alive. The ceiling opened up through this room, which was really just a widened section of the same mining corridors they had been walking through all day now, the sides of the room home to more distressed pieces of furniture and broken equipment. 

The walls however were littered with small foot-wide holes as far up as they extended some eight metres. The group were very careful to pass through quietly, unsure of what these holes contained. As they drew nearer, there were indeed noises coming from within. A quiet squishy, squirming noise, like maggots. One glance inside one of the holes with a torch confirmed hundreds of tiny void worms glowing in an undulating mass, faces and bodies almost entirely flesh and teeth and bone spikes. 

Just how many millions of them were within all of the holes in these walls, none of them could accurately estimate, but they dreaded the idea of so many being in one place. The average worm could grow, depending on how much void-infused flesh it was fed, up to and surpassing the size of a large transit truck. It would make sense that the cultists had a few of at least that size down here to account for some of the strangely shaped caverns and tunnels. 

“We can’t leave these here-” Sasha shivered with disgust as she leant over to take a look down one of the holes. They were about a metre deep and the clear fluid from before was seeping through the rocks at the end of the holes, probably filtered from that huge room upstairs with the tanks. That was the most probable source of their food. 

“I’m well aware,” Levi said, interrupting her. 

Everyone stood awkwardly quiet for a long moment. No one wanted to suggest how they could possibly rid the tunnels of this many maggots without using heavy explosives or without using energy from the void. There weren’t many other options, and none of them were safe. 

“We leave it for now,” Levi said softly. “There’s no point in destroying these if there is a ritual set up to summon more. We’ll only be wasting our time if we bury ourselves alive over a few worms.” 

Satisfied with the order, everyone nodded in agreement. They continued on down the mine shaft before Connie’s GPS started picking up readings before all electrics on anyone started to scramble, their screens going blurry. 

“Jean and Connie stay here and keep guard. If the interference clears up I’ll let you know,” Levi said, gesturing to where the two would be stationed as they approached a turn. Down the hall around the final corner was a large open cavern, the entire space glowing ever so gently. 

The gentle hum of voices could be heard and Armin gave Mikasa and Eren a concerned glance from the side, raising his rifle and propping it up against his shoulder just a little more firmly, the tension thick in the air despite Mikasa’s soothing influence.The cavern dropped down into a candlelit expanse, ragged stalagmites projecting out from the cavern’s floor. They jutted up several metres, some joining with the roof and matching stalactites forming impressive white columns. Each of them were encircled with rows of candles, eerily flickering light over everything and casting a dim flickering glow throughout. 

Now as a group of six, the group approached slowly, cautious of the light capturing their shadows and giving away their approach. 

There were roughly ten robed and hooded cultists on their hands and knees in a circle facing a large altar carved from the bedrock of the cave. It too was surrounded by mountains of candles and the cultist’s chants murmured oppressively through the hallway. 

“They are calling out to their deity,” Historia said quietly, understanding the language they chanted in. “They are trying to lure a void demon,” she said. 

The six crept silently, close enough to get a closer look at the room’s contents. While more details became apparent, such as it being a closed off cavern with no other entrances, the bloated corpse lying atop the altar caught their attention. Eren covered his mouth and pointed but his comrades had already spotted it. Aside from Levi, but he probably felt his team mate’s repulsion. 

The corpse was probably once one of the cultists or possibly a miner captured for sacrifice, tattered robes in a rich dark blue velvet stained nearly entirely with blood, it’s stomach and chest grossly protruding and moving from within with uneven writhing and squirming. Something was _inside_ the body. The more they chanted, the more the candlelight started to flicker with disruption and the flames started to turn a blue green shade, ominously drowning the cavern in its sickly hue. 

One of the cultists at the head of the altar stood, tattoos all over his face, and raised his arms to the air, raising his volume above the rest. Historia looked panicked at this, and she nudged Levi. 

“We have to stop them before they summon it,” she urged. Levi gestured for them all to draw their weapons, and they all prepared themselves. Levi pointed at Sasha, then to the room, so she pulled her rifle up to her eye and pointed the gun into the room, not aimed at anything in particular. Once the trigger was pulled, the bullet shot out, guided by her mind’s eye and down through the cavern, piercing through the sides of four cultist’s heads before she ran out of energy. The shocked gasps and cries from within cued for the rest to push in, firing at the remaining cultists before they could finish their ritual. 

The head priest let out a pained laugh as he was shot, muttering something with a smirk on his face as Historia passed him to check over the area. The corpse on the altar started moving and Armin faltered in his stride, wracked with an intense pain. Eren seemed to short-wire and he collapsed on the spot, Mikasa stumbled but otherwise was alright and Historia gripped at her ears as if tormented by the screams of a thousand dying innocent souls.

Levi could sense the intense energy in the room which was messing with his witches’ minds. The force from the void was splitting before them, the ritual having been a success, and whatever they had called forth was tearing a hole in reality in the centre of the room, unleashing huge waves of ghastly energy. Gravity lightened and candle flames blew out as howling winds swept the cavern, the altar cracking and crumbling. 

The room was plunged into darkness and then washed over brightly with an intense green glow, the tear in reality now large enough for something to step through. The colour matched the tainted fluids they had encountered throughout the rest of the mines. Levi immediately called for backup to Connie and Jean, and loudly yelled the only order he could. 

“Fire!” 

A thousand tiny fly-like insects flew from the bright blue-green tear, under closer inspection tiny ethereal skulls which swarmed with the strong gusts, biting at the team’s skin. Levi was doing his best to cut his blades through whichever ones came close, but they just split in two and rejoined again. The group raised their weapons and a few attempted to shoot or swing blades at the flies, unable to stop any of them, only disperse them. 

Their focus was torn away from the distraction as a long clawed arm and leg appeared through the gap between realities. In a semi-circle surrounding it, the team open fired as ordered. The more of the beast that appeared - a dark mossy green complexion to its slick, wet looking skin, the more terrified they grew. Eren was still trying to compose himself from the initial disturbance, lying on the ground in a state of disorientation. 

Historia covered her mouth with her hand, stunned as fear gripped her, gun long forgotten. Mikasa was deeply disturbed by the image appearing before them, but as strong willed as she was, was able to compose herself swiftly. Armin’s hands were shaking too much to handle his weapon effectively, stood still in fear before his feet carried him as far away from the source as possible. This led him up between the stalagmites toward the rear of the cavern, unwilling to pass the tear in order to flee from the entrance they came through. He crouched down behind a pillar and covered his ears, trying to block everything out.

Sasha blindly shot at the creature, unable to process any other emotion at the time. Levi was wracked with an immense pain in his temples, unable to move, blades dropping to his feet before falling to his knees to clasp at the sides of his head with the pain. 

As they quickly managed to come to their senses with the exception of Levi and Armin, the team open fired and focused entirely on shooting down the demon which was attempting to break through into their realm of existence. Unlike the mutant miner from before, their bullets immediately dealt damage, seemingly slowing down it’s entrance but unable to stop it completely. 

The demon clawed it’s way through the tear and revealed more of itself. It was an ugly, horrible creature with red and black eyes sunken into each gnarly limb, it’s vision unending and able to see in every direction at all times. Each eye was focused on whichever person was closest to it, locked on and frighteningly focused. It’s arms and legs were elongated, and it’s skin appeared wet, dripping a repulsive black sludge wherever it moved. This sludge fizzed and dissolved the rock as it touched it, slowly sinking into the earth. 

It’s ankles and wrists were bound with dark metal shackles, glowing softly with green light. 

Historia side stepped toward Mikasa, keeping her eyes on the beast as it slowly emerged and the team continued shooting. 

“It’s a weak one, aim for the altar, not the demon!” She cried. Everyone changed their focus to the bloated corpse beneath the tear, presumably the catalyst for the hole. 

Loud cracks sounded through the air above their heads, indicating the arrival of two extra guns. Connie’s laser pistols packed a punch when the beams collided with the demon’s limbs, melting the flesh and scattering pebbles of sludge around. Some of the sludge splattered onto Mikasa’s cheek, burning her instantly and causing her to stop firing to try and wipe it off with her sleeve. It came off with ease, but left burn marks on her cheek and her arm, the thick material having taken most of the heat as she struggled to pull her jacket off. 

Jean called for everyone to take a step back and he flung a grenade toward the altar, taking a large chunk out of it and seemingly disrupting the demon’s entry, the body atop the altar now lying in two pieces. 

“Good, do that again!” Sasha said, still firing at the creature to slow it down. 

It didn’t have a chance to emerge fully, as Jean’s next grenade managed to directly impact the top of the altar, destroying the body. The demon let out a loud roar and retreated in a haze of dark green fog, the ghost-like flies being sucked back into the hole too, leaving a gaping chasm roughly one metre wide. 

Historia was quick to run down the slopes and got straight to work, holding her arms out as she channelled the loose void energy in the way she knew best. With the demon’s presence now gone, Levi fell to the ground, unconscious. Sasha ran to his side to inspect his wellbeing as the rest of the team covered Historia in case anything else attempted to break through whilst she attempted to close the rip. 

Her hair tossed wildly in the wind and her eyes glowed white, the winds gathering around her and her only as the void energy was drawn in toward her. All of the terrible energy the tear had unleashed was now intensifying around Historia, lifting her off her feet and trying to rebel against the control she was trying to enforce. It was like a wildfire that salted the earth. Without anyone to tame it, it would run rampant and eat into anything and everything that lived, sucking it dry and leaving it scorched and lifeless. 

It was over almost as suddenly as it had begun, the whole cavern now full of bodies and tar-like sludge. Even the smell was acidic, making the group back away from it as quickly as they could. Jean came over to help Sasha carry Levi out of the room while Historia returned to her senses and the rift was sealed shut, the gales and screams disappearing with it. Back to where they belonged. She slumped to the ground when it was complete, Eren there to catch her in his arms, picking her up and removing her from the tainted ground. 

Once all down the halls, the ground rumbled and the sounds of screaming echoed throughout the corridors. It was too hard to tell from which direction it was all coming from. It was as if the very mines themselves were being cleared of the energetic taint that had poisoned it. It felt like anything remaining with life in it connected to the void was curling up and dying a pained, horrifying death. 

“Fuck, what happened to Levi?” Connie asked as Sasha and Jean set Levi down against the wall, still unresponsive. 

“Dunno, he just collapsed,” Sasha said. “Eren did too, but he seems okay now…” 

Eren was a little shaken, but the gunfire had done wonders to bring him back to his senses. The overwhelming effect of the energy summoned to call forth a demon, even a minor one, was intense for anyone with a connection to the void. The stronger the connection, the worse the effect, apparently. 

Armin was as pale as a sheet and completely quiet, gently holding his rifle against his chest as a means of comfort, Historia looking exhausted. 

“Damn, how are we gonna get out of here like this?” Jean griped, checking his systems before leaning over Connie’s arm to check his too. The interference was gone, but they were too far down into the earth to contact the surface. Back at HQ, Erwin would be able to organise a pickup if the weather was clear enough, provided they could reach a high enough point to get some signal. Due to the metals lining the soil around where they were mining, the signal would only really be granted at surface level. 

“Well I’ve got everything mapped out, it should be a lot more simple heading back because we’ve got a direction to follow,” Connie said, the pair talking amongst themselves for a while. Eren approached Levi, concerned. He was never this still, even when he was sleeping. The man only ever slept for two hours a night, too wracked with nightmares to do otherwise. Eren sat down beside him and gently guided him into a lying position, using his lap as a pillow for the shorter man. 

He closed his eyes and rested a hand across the side of Levi’s head, seeing if the impenetrable fortress that was usually his mind, was open at the moment. 

Immediate access was granted, the powerful witch completely unconscious even to his own mental barriers, and Eren found Levi’s mind in a surprising state of calm. He couldn’t pinpoint anything wrong with him, other than the overload of void energy which was probably what took him out. Eren also worried that he wasn't astute enough to sense an underlying problem.

“Is he okay?” Sasha’s soft voice echoed through Eren’s mind. He opened his eyes and saw her caught up in between Connie and Jean discussing their escape route, a concerned frown on her face as she looked over to him. 

“I don’t know,” was the non-verbal response. Sasha sighed before refocusing in on the conversation before her. Mikasa was busy consoling Armin, who was in a state of shock to the point where he was unresponsive and was only able to be gently led. His face was blank and his skin pale, clearly badly shaken by the whole experience. It would be good for them to see daylight again. It might even raise their spirits, even if they would be haunted by this for the rest of their days. 

Eren ended up carrying Levi over his shoulder and Armin was guided down the corridors once the humans had decided upon a safe route. The mines felt strangely empty now without the oppressive energy tainting it from top to bottom. All of the burrowed holes were empty and the glowing ooze was now a smelly clear liquid with no void life coursing through it. All of the void beings, such as the worms, had shrivelled and died along with the closing of the tear, their source of energy now vanquished. 

Their trip back up to the surface was a slow one. Every so often Armin would slow to a stop and start sobbing, unable to be consoled. The rest of them had grim looks on their faces as they passed back through the bloodied corridors. Jean gave every bloodied metal door a dirty look, clearly having the mental image of whatever was behind the previous one imbedded into his memory. 

Just as they re-emerged into the original room full of fluid tanks, Connie’s systems alerted him of something, making him ask the group to stop. Eren took the moment to set Levi down and rest and Mikasa took over. It was starting to worry them that their strongest fighter had been out of action for at least two hours now. 

“Guys hold up.” 

“What is it?” 

“The sensors are going crazy,” Connie explained. 

“Crap, you don’t think it’s those six from earlier?” Sasha said, just at the same moment that a group of growls and grumbles sounded out through the corridor, echoing past the heavy metal door that was still ajar at the end of the room. Sasha was quick to close it, not wasting any time on movement and swinging the door shut with her mind, locking it for good measure. 

“Thanks Sash,” Connie said. “How are we gonna deal with six of them? Especially when Levi is out for the count!” He was exasperated and sounded as miserable as he felt. He was concerned that he wasn’t going to make it out alive. As it was he’d already encountered mutants, more mutilated bodies than he could count and a void demon. This was their final obstacle, and there were six of them roaming about the only exit corridor. 

The fluids in the room were no longer emitting that same toxic glow, but it still stank. They couldn’t stay and wait this out. The situation was looking dire. To make matters worse, Jean asked for a gear check. 

“I’ve got two clips left,” Sasha said. “One here, plus whatever is left in this clip,” Eren said, tapping the clip fixed to the bottom of his gun. Everyone was running low on ammunition. 

“Okay, so we’re low on ammo. Who’s got enough energy to attack mentally?” Jean asked, looking expectantly at the six witches, two of which were no use. 

“Well I’m no use offensively,” Eren said with a huff. “Levi’s still out cold and Armin can barely speak.” 

“So that leaves Mikasa, Sasha and Historia…” Jean begun, but looking at a very tired and ragged looking Historia made him regret his words. “Make that Mikasa and Sasha. Sasha’s only good in short bursts so Mikasa, got it in you to take down six potentially?” 

Mikasa shrugged. “I’m strong,” was all she said. 

“We can’t just let her face them alone!” Eren protested. 

Jean eyed Levi for a quick moment and Mikasa blinked with surprise as he twitched over her shoulder. She carefully set him down and they all gaped at him, His skin was turning a light shade of pink and bubbling from underneath, the flesh bursting into fissures and warts. 

“Crap crap crap!” Eren said, backing away from him. Only he had the relevant experience to understand exactly what was about to happen. “Send Levi out there!” He said in a hurry, finger pointed at the bolted metal door. “Back up and give him space, he’s about to wake back up and he’s not gonna be in a good mood about it!” 

The urgency in Eren’s voice ushered everyone to the back of the room, Levi’s unconscious body twitching with the change. Whatever his mind was fighting off, his body was responding with a reaction to the void energy coursing through him. His fingers cracked and the bones snapped, elongating and becoming thick and gnarly, the skin tearing in several places as the fingernails lengthened into long, four-inch claws made of thick keratin. 

His whole body shook at the same time the door banged loudly, hungry and rabid growls having followed their deformed noses to the source of the subtle sound of footsteps and a door closing. The group raised their weapons and cautiously awaited Levi’s awakening, scared that he wouldn’t get up in time and be pulled apart before them. 

“We can’t just leave him there!” Connie said quietly amidst the rumbling noises demanding entry. Eren shushed him, eyes focused on Levi as he shook and shuddered, his legs shaking violently as the bones broke themselves with loud cracks and pops and bent back into new positions, longer and stronger and more muscular. His toenails morphed into matching claws, one foot only forming four where two toes had merged together, piercing out from his shoes and leaving his pants in tatters as his legs re-shaped and thickened out with the extra muscle. 

Levi’s head flung back against the stone floor and he groaned in pain, eyes opening and hair a complete mess, his veins lighting up with what Eren was so concerned about. 

“Mikasa be ready just in case,” he warned her. She knew what it meant. Levi’s skin started to burn and crackle in places as the electricity started to spark from his skin. He had the ability to both shape his own flesh as well as force out immense bolts of bio-infused lightning. Usually he was able to control it, and only ever did one bolt at a time. Eren knew naturally to be wary anyway, but you didn’t need to be clairvoyant to understand the writhing mess of void energy on the ground before you needed to be given a wide berth. 

Levi moaned out loud in an incredible amount of pain as his body re-shaped seemingly by it’s own accord. His throat gurgled and he coughed up blood, red oozing from his nostrils and his ears and seeping from his eyes, macabre tears painting his pale complexion. His skin bubbled with the electricity and it washed over him in ripples as he rolled slowly onto his side, still convulsing as his spine arched, ribs cracking and bones grinding together as his chest broadened. 

When Levi stood, his white eyes were completely washed red with blood, crimson staining his face and seeping from every orifice, dripping down his now bare chest, his uniform left in tatters, jacket barely staying on his shoulders and shirt drenched in blood and dirt. His jaw dislocated and the bones in his face made obscene, wet crunching noises as it allowed room for more teeth to slowly split through his gums, distorting his gum line as his mouth sprouted sharp canines and incisors. 

Naturally he couldn’t speak with this going on, so growled at the group before shifting around, slowly returning to his senses and facing the door as the mutated miners on the other side writhed against it. The slip of light beneath the door was littered with desperate shadows, the creatures pushing against each other to the point of the door creaking with the strain. 

The group got to witness the bone splitting out from Levi’s spine in long spikes as he slowly staggered toward the door. He didn’t appear at all agile in this form and even Eren was unsure as to whether he would return to normal after this.

“Get ready,” Jean told the group as Levi approached the door, hunching over and powerfully thrusting his newly grown claws straight through the sheet metal. Whilst this form seemed to greatly hinder his agility, his strength had been grossly duplicated multiple times over. He threw the door to the side as if it weighed nothing, the creatures outside flooding in and surrounding him in an instant. 

They were just as hideous as the one before. Six men had fallen victim to the energy of the void, twisting and mutating their skin beyond human recognition. One had arms long enough to drag along the ground, another had a great, swollen head - easily three times the size of a normal human skull. It jiggled with excess fluids and glowed a soft green colour. 

One of the mutants had a lower half consisting of nothing but a hideous mass of rotting tentacles and it’s upper body was deformed beyond recognition, half of the torso torn apart and sprouting long black teeth. A few of the members of Levi’s squad had a hard time watching - the sight too grisly to behold. 

If the group at the back of the room had any clear shots without hitting their team leader, they took it. Levi swung an unnaturally muscular clawed arm at one of the mutants, eviscerating it from shoulder to naval, it’s guts dropping out over his feet before slumping defeated to the ground. The creatures tried their best to claw and bite at Levi, but whenever they tried, his skin would burst with a shock of electricity, repelling them and stunning them, making them easy to deal with.

Great arcs of electricity erupted from Levi’s skin, gripping the creatures at the throats and slamming them to the ground or throwing them against the walls a few metres, leaving large dents in the rock from the force.

Between the eight of them, Armin aside, the six mutations were dealt with within a matter of seconds. It hadn't even been a full minute before all of the creatures were dead and lumped in front of the doorway. Levi made an attempt to kick some of the corpses from the pathway and slowly lumbered out and down the corridor, one arm dragging on the floor with the damage he had taken from one of the creatures and an ankle walking at an off angle. 

“I take it that’s our cue to follow him?” Sasha asked. Mikasa returned to Armin’s side to take his arm and gently lead him toward the door. He didn’t even flinch or look at the mess they had made, nor had he seemed particularly responsive when the gunfire started. 

“Come on, let’s go,” Jean ordered. 

As they turned the corridor, guns raised, they followed the bloody trail that Levi had made as he hobbled toward the exit. The group gave him some distance, aware that he was still channeling an intense amount of void energy, given away by how his charged skin would jump out to electrocute anything biological Levi stood near. It pinched and danced across any patch of blood or viscera, experimentally ran it’s electrical fingers across the walls and the lights, occasionally breaking them. 

The power seemed to be dying down the further he walked, though, his shoulders hunched over and his long claws shrivelling and falling off. Once his skin had stopped glowing, the group drew a little closer, aware that he was likely to collapse at any moment from the effort. 

His arms cracked into distorted angles as they re-adjusted and reformed, the skin mending itself and stretching back over the exposed bone. Muscle knitted back together and the bone spines along his back retreated back into the body from wherever they had birthed from. His magic was undoing itself and in turn piecing him back together. 

“He never goes that far…” Eren commented quietly. “I wonder why he did it?” Mikasa shrugged. 

“You’ll have to ask.”

“Yeah, it doesn’t make sense. He went all funny with that demon appearing and then boom!” Sasha joined in, presenting her arms out in front of her toward Levi. 

“At least he’s uh… healing…” Connie said, grimacing at the sight staggering in it’s steps before them as it’s legs reformed, loud cracks being heard from where they were stood and lumps of dying fleshy appendages dropping off as he didn't require the extra length anymore. 

“And he killed the mutants,” Historia said with a weak smile of reassurance. 

“Yeah, not gonna lie, I dunno why he did it, but he saved our asses.” 

“It was pretty intense down there. If you all felt it like I did, I’d understand why it took Levi out. He’s closer to the void than any of us,” Eren said, looking over at the man as he fell forward, curling in on himself as his organs finished rearranging. He rolled over onto his back, seemingly back to normal. His mouth hung open slightly and that’s where the evidence laid that he’d not been entirely successful in returning to his usual self. His mouth was still littered with a few extra teeth that hadn’t fallen out, sharp and pointed. 

Eren and Historia crouched down beside him, rousing him slightly with a reassuring hand to his shoulder and hand. 

“Levi? Are you okay?” 

Levi was still evidently in a lot of pain, his body having just reconstructed itself and then regenerated. Even the frostbite on his fingertips had been replaced with fresh, lively tissue and skin. He'd even regenerated a few fingernails which didn’t look too ugly. He groaned in response and opened and closed his eyes, blinking the blood away as best he could. Historia pulled out her water carton and doused some over Levi’s face to which he took a hand and smeared the water all over. 

“I can’t wait for a fucking shower,” Levi griped, the team members all smiling or letting out little laughs. Eren squeezed his hand, happy that their Levi was back and okay. 

Once everyone was back on their feet, they started the long walk back to the surface. By the time they reached the surface they were cold, starving and exhausted. The storm had swung back over the region, dusting everything with thick sheets of white and making it hard to see. 

Mikasa encouraged Armin all the while there, trying to get him to acknowledge the white snow around him. While mostly unresponsive to any of her attempts to console him, his eyes did start to look around at the snow by his feet as he followed the group trekking back to the encampment. They would return to HQ where they had the psychological help he would need to recover. 

“Erwin, this is squad Levi, over.” Jean attempted to radio. It fizzled and crackled with functional operation. A tense moment hung between them as they walked into the town in the early light of dawn, having spent the better part of an entire day down in the mines. It was the following morning and the sun was barely up. Would they have to wait even longer before they could get home, or would Erwin respond? 

“Squad Levi, this is Petra, over.” 

“Thank fuck,” Connie sighed. 

“Our position is 68.648 by 139.251,” Jean reported, requesting for air pickup if possible. Petra reported that a flyer would be by in a few hours. They were ordered to get somewhere warm and stay safe. 

They walked through the town and headed toward the inn they had stayed in previously. They were all drenched in blood and sweat and mud so the team drew a lot of attention from the townsfolk. People stared from windows, wary of the outsiders who had gone into the cursed mines and come back alive. Hushed whispers and mutters followed them and people going about their daily business were startled into heading straight back home again, avoiding these people at any cost. 

After all, to enter those mines and return alive, these couldn’t possibly be any ordinary people. While they hadn’t gotten opportunity to explore the vast expanse of caverns underground spanning out further than they could imagine, they still removed one immediate threat and deeming the mission a success. The battle was won, but the war would rage for years to come.

Yes, there would be more battles against the organisation dedicated to eradicating their world, but they would be there to fight it, no matter how feared they may be as a result. 

Because they were witches of the void, and they had the job no one else wanted.

It was also the job no one else could do.


End file.
